Is Public Works Minister Diane Finley Just A Lousy Shopper, Or Is She Really This Foolish?

In a time when Canadians are being asked by the Conservative Government of Canada to tighten their belts and sharpen their pencils and learn to do more with less, is it responsible government to turn down a 500 million dollar savings on the procurement on a Polar Icebreaker? Does Public Works Minister Diane Finley‘s rejection of an offer made by Quebec’s Davie shipyard to save the government and therefore the Canadian tax payer a guaranteed half a billion dollarson a new icebreaker make sense, in a time when the average Canadian has not seen a substantial raise in over 10 years and most paychecks do not cover the monthly bills? In a time when collective bargaining has been put on hold while Canada recovers from a still fragile economic position according to the Harper government and unions have just about been outlawed, because Stephen Harperand his Conservative Party of Canada view unions and their members as a terrorist threat, to be hunted down, and wiped out by any means necessary lest Canada be forced back into the depths of the dreaded recession is it a reasonable position for Public Works Minister Diane Finley to turn away a guaranteed saving of 500 million dollar to build a Polar Icebreaker, because she does not believe it is possible to do and is obstinately refusing investigate the facts? In a time when the Harper government claims it has no choice but to renege on a deal it struck with federal civil servant via collective bargaining in which the employees respected their end, because they claim it is unsustainable for them due to a slow recovering economy that Public Works Minister Diane Finley’s reject an offer by Quebec’s Davie shipyard to save the government half a billion dollarson a new icebreaker; an offer that they are willing to guarantee? This is the type of hypocrisy and ill-informed decision-making that Canadians have been forced to endure since Harper came to power with his strong, secure conservative government. The only thing that this government has been able to procure for Canadians is a guaranteed scandal a day and the cost for such entertainment is billions of dollars, the safety of our troops put on the back-burner and the majority of working Canadians having to go into debt for the most simplest of living as the price of gas, food and lodging raise way above the ability of their monthly take home pay.

I once believed that this government was only incompetent when it came to large military procurements such as the F-35 Fighter Jet fiasco, or the Close Combat Vehicle, (CCV) Project worth $2 billion cancellation, but now that Prime Minister Harper has put the lady in charge of ordering office supplies in charge of all military procurements as well, it becomes painfully obvious that it is not just one member of the party that would rather over spend by millions of dollars and endure delays of up to 10 years on delivery for something they claim Canada needs right away, but that this a systemic problem that deeply rooted in this party’s core principles. What Public Works Minister Diane Finley has said basically, if not literally amounts to this, “I do not care if we do not have a signed contract with anyone, we have an agreement in principle. I do not care how many hundreds of millions of dollars the government can save Canadian tax payers, by using Quebec’s Davies ship yard, because they do not require new tooling, because our party has already assigned the work to Seaspan shipyard in North Vancouver. I do not care that Canadians will have to wait over a decade for the, “Diefenbaker” to be built because Seaspan is already working on 2 ships for the navy and would not even start to build the Diefenbaker until those 2 ships were built and they have retooled, because Davies shipyard had their chance to bid and they failed to win. Finally just for the record we do not care that the Davie yard is the biggest yard in Canada or does not need retooling, has guaranteed their price and can start building the ship right away, or that they have recently finished a 130-metre offshore construction vessel for a Norwegian customer, named the Cecon Pride, that it was delivered on time for $200 million, or that the yard is now building two similar ships; well, we don’t have a contract, but we have made an award under that procurement based on the credibility, the viability, the reliability of the companies at the time.” “They had a chance to compete. At the time, they weren’t successful.”

Neither Public Works Minister Diane Finley, or Prime Minister Stephen Harper have given any reasonable explanation as to why this ship has to be built by Seaspan shipyard out in BC for more money and a delayed time of start, instead of using Davies shipyard in Quebecfor a guaranteed price which is 1/2 a billion dollars less than any other offer and suggest an immediate start time is available, but this lack of reasoning’s has opened the door to my imagination and the 2015 federal election date keeps popping into my head. I asked myself is the conservative party through this contracts buying western votes and support? There is not one government that has been in power with a majority government that has not used its procurement power to buy its continued support of voters who have supported them in the past and rewarding these voters by giving companies lucrative contracts that provide job opportunities for these communities is just one way that they accomplish this task. Having said that though when a government decides that it is okay to screw around with the best practices of our military and search and rescue procurement policies endangering the lives of our men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country and keep its population safe, I say that they have crossed the line and gone too far. The Canadian armed forces will not get the replacement fighter jet on time due to delays and sky rocketing costs; the Canadian armed forces will not get the close combat vehicle they were supposed to get because this government cancelled the project so they can balance the budget in 2015, like they promised; the Canadian coast guard will not get its new polar icebreaker anytime soon because this government wishes the ship built where it will benefit them most in votes for the 2015 election and I say this government is playing Russian roulette with our lives for votes.

This is not Bev Odapaying $16 for orange juice and changing a word on a document to get her way; this is deliberately making and already dangerous job even more perilous, by continuing to make back door deals and ill-informed decisions that result in delays of getting much-needed equipment where it is needed in a timely fashion for our troops and now our coast guard. When you add to that the secondary matter of the billions of tax payer dollars wasted by this government on failed attempts to procure everything from a paper clip to a jet fighter aircraft is it any wonder really that every social program in Canada is unsustainable?